Public Safety officers need to have their hands free, especially in emergency situations. So requiring an office to hold his radio to remain in two-way communication with others officers and dispatchers is inefficient and also dangerous to officers.
One solution that allows officers to keep their hands free is to accessorize officers with a speaker connected to their radios. This speaker is often worn on the officer's chest and provides a speaker that incoming communications can be played on for the officer to hear. Although this frees up the officer's hands, it also hands significant drawbacks.
First, playing communications from other officers and dispatchers can give people near the officer information that they should not have. This can be, for example, information about a potential suspect that could assist that suspect or information about another person that others should not know for privacy reasons.
Further, playing communications publicly on a speaker located on a public safety officer can compromise the location of an officer, thereby making his job more dangerous.
In addition, public safety officers work in various environments that have different ambient noise levels. It is inconvenient and deleterious for an officer to have to adjust the level of volume on a speaker due to ambient noise changes, since oftentimes these noise changes occur at times when an officer most needs his hands to be free. Also, having an officer fumble for a volume switch can take his attention and even his vision from the dangerous task at hand.
For all these reasons, there is a need for method that allows a public safety officer to receive communications while allowing the officer to keep his hands free and not divulge information or the location of the officer to those around him.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.